Industry experts flag custody risks for growing BTC spot ETFs

While Bitcoin spot ETFs have significantly improved access to cryptocurrency investments, structural market issues remain unresolved, according to industry experts. Speaking at the Consensus conference in Miami, Christopher Russell, Head of Strategy and Analytics at Calamos Investments, noted that the share of BTC spot ETFs is still minimal compared to the total advisory market's $146 trillion in assets. He added that advisors are hesitant to allocate significantly to the volatile asset, partly due to the burden of explaining sharp price drops to clients. Separately, Jean-Marie Mognetti, co-founder of CoinShares, highlighted custody structure issues, warning that a huge concentration risk is emerging because most ETFs rely on Coinbase as their single custodian.